Find Your Way
by Cerrat
Summary: OC story in the FFVIII universe. Adan and friends study and fight as aspiring SeeD graduates-to-be. Post-game. Both homo and heterosexual relationships. Not relationship dominated. Game characters are in the story, but OC characters have their own lives.
1. Prelude: Starting Up

Well this took me long enough. I remember mentioning starting this many many months ago.

But here it is, the prelude completed. It's probably a little more than a prelude, but nevertheless. There it is.

The name, 'Find Your Way', is a musical track from FFVIII's OST, and is the music that plays in a lot of dungeons. I thought it appropriate a title for a work detailing life in the FFVIII world. The chapter names, also, are titles from the OST. Unless I run out of them, I should be able to keep being clever in that department.

Hope you enjoy!

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**Prelude: Starting Up**

Another sunny day. A slight breeze, a few clouds watching from beyond the mountains, but no complaints. If you listened hard enough, you could even hear the waves roaming the beach half a mile or so away.

Another day. Another lesson on the science of junctioning.

Another audible groan.

Pulling himself up to a sitting position on the side of the bed he'd been daydreaming on, Adan pulled his SeeD trainee jacket over the shirt he was wearing and, with a stretch, got up and left his small room.

In the communal kitchen, his roommate, Leif, was eating … something, and so gave a stuffed smile and a raised plate in greeting. Smiling and nodding to his friend, Adan kept moving through and out of the room and into the corridor.

Taking a right, he found himself on the wide corridor that connected the Dormitories to the main garden hub, smiling at a few people he knew along the way. To either side of the corridor, students sat and talked in the Garden grounds, enjoying the sun beneath the gigantic, ornate awning that was so iconic of Balamb Garden, as the midday bell chimed across the complex.

Stepping from the corridor and into the main hub of the Garden, the gentle trickle of water greeted Adan; the manmade half river, half moat flowing around and underneath the walkways. Around him, students hustled and bustled as they hurried to and from the particulars of their days. Above him, the floor was more sparse as early afternoon classes got underway. Heading right, towards the faint smell of food, Adan decided it might not be such a bad day after all.

Entering another adjoining corridor, Adan took the opportunity to look around him; beyond the large windows on either side of the passage, students and SeeDs alike mulled around the cafeteria's courtyard; eating, sparring, practicing magic or just relaxing in-between classes. The sounds of conversation, laughter, and the occasional shriek of excitement were pervasive as the Garden lived and breathed through the students.

The sound of unintelligible conversation was joined by the scraping and clinking of cutlery as Adan moved into the real cafeteria, his nose assaulted by a combination of everything eaten, in the process of being eaten, and to be eaten that the room had to offer. Approaching the counter, he ordered something light and glanced around, spotting people he knew. Absently smiling in thanks to the waitress, he took his food and moved away towards where his friends sat. Along the way, he paused to take in a sight. Before him sat Zell Dincht, the Garden's premiere Martial Artist and movement expert, and before **him**, was a plate stacked with about four hotdogs. The blonde man looked as if he'd found buried treasure, beaming ear to ear at Adan when he noticed him staring.

"I've been here seven, man. **Seven!**" Adan just smirked, whilst the man sitting with Zell--a man Adan didn't know--sighed.

"There were four more before you got here"

At this Adan laughed before moving away, telling Zell he'd see him for class tomorrow. His instructor nodded, barely hearing what he'd said, before returning to his feast.

Noticing him as he approached their table, his friends moved aside to let the boy sit down in the crowded hall. A girl with jet black hair, pulled back into a ponytail, beamed up at him, before gazing past the way he'd came.

"What's made Instructor Dincht so happy?" _Instructor Dincht. _Adan supposed he was, really, although Zell wouldn't like it if someone called him that to his face.

"Food, Mea" he replied with a smile, "food." The girl opposite him, Mea, looked quizzical before returning to her conversation. The boy next to Adan looked away from his conversation to include him, asking him what classes he had during the day, as if he'd been a part of the discussion from the very beginning.

"SoJ" he replied, followed by a sigh. A few grimaces from those who were listening followed, along with several of his classmates agreeing how much it 'sucked'.

The time passed in the cafeteria with little care to the academic woes around them. Adan contentedly ate his food whilst his friends talked around him, occasionally contributing to the inane babble whenever somebody addressed him. Generally the mood was calm and relaxed, Adan enjoying the time he had with his friends.

With his meal finished, and some light, pointless banter engaged in, Adan rose to take his leave of the cafeteria, bidding his friends a cheery farewell. He wanted to take a short walk, get some fresh air and possibly do some thinking before the tedium of class in the not-too-distant future.

Before he left, however, he felt a hand touching his arm, holding him back. It wasn't a grasp, nor was it feathery brushing of material, but it was light. It was asking him to stay a moment without vocalising it. Looking to the culprit, Adan found the arm attached to the boy who'd been sitting next to him, Zetal. Meeting his green eyes, Adan cocked his head, the motion once again saying just as much as words.

"Hey..." he began sheepishly, an odd contrast to his energetic and outgoing mood at the table, "Can... I, err... that is to say..." Sensing Adan's growing frustration, he finally committed, "are you free later? I kinda need to talk to you..." He took a long breath, appearing physically relieved to have finally said it. Despite this, worry still creased his features at the prospect of Adan's response.

"Um, sure" he replied, seeing no reason to decline, confused though he may have been. "Why? Is it important? Can't you talk to me now?"

"No!" Zetal replied immediately, before quickly checking that nobody had seen him, "It's err... It's private". His cheeks flushed crimson as he buried himself in studying his shoelaces. Adan tried to pretend he hadn't noticed, or that he wasn't piecing together Zetal's motives. Plastering a friendly grin on his face, he nodded.

"OK. Shall we say the secret area? After curfew?"

Having reached a settlement with the still abashed Zetal, Adan turned and headed away, the brief conversation staying with him long after he'd left the cafeteria.

---

Balamb Garden had undergone many changes since its first creation: Peace, civil war, and flight. Soon after that she'd become a warship, taking the fight to Galbadia in that blistering, horrific battle over Centra. Adan had only been a junior classmen then, but he remembered it all. All the running, all the fighting; the feeling that there was nothing he could do. He had had to run and hide and cry whilst others fought, others protected him, whilst others died...

Shaking the traumatic memories of his, and hundreds of other students, past away, Adan carried on down the main concourse, towards what was once the main gate of the Garden. She was currently stationed—moored, he supposed—roughly half a mile from the coast of Balamb, where she usually resided unless some kind of urgent business called for the Garden to move. The main entrance, smashed and ruined by the Garden's virgin flight, had been converted into a dock of sorts, where students could catch a regular ferry back to the mainland to visit family in Balamb, or to catch the train elsewhere. This system had been in place for about half a year now, and the students had taken to it pretty well. The broken precipice in the Quad had been fixed as well; turned into a viewing balcony.

Garden had been through a lot, Adan mused, but it looked as if she might finally be able to start existing as an academy again. Not a warship, not a floating fortress, but a military academy, training Balamb's elite mercenary force, SeeD, rather than waging political and orchestrating universal salvation.

But more important than all of these world altering events, in Adan's mind, was his altercation with Zetal.

Adan was no fool; he could see the obvious situation before him. At least, he could see what it looked like; he was having trouble convincing himself that it was true. Logically, all the signs and expressions Zetal had displayed demonstrated quite clearly that his friend had some kind of attraction to Adan that went beyond their current friendship. Logically, Adan should have known that. But instead, his conscience and ego created a quandary in his mind.

Did Zetal like him? As in, _have feelings for him?_ No, that wasn't possible. He was just Adan. There was nothing particularly special about him. '_Preposterous'_, he thought. Zetal could go for anybody more attractive, smarter, with a better personality. Adan wasn't noteworthy.

'_But he still asked you, didn't he?'_ his mind retorted to itself, '_that has to mean something. Maybe he does like you. Maybe if you go there later, there'll be so—'_

Striking the thoughts from his head as he heard the low, chiming bell from the Garden, alerting him that classes were about to start. Determined to find everything out later, when he was face to face with Zetal, he turned from the main concourse and headed for the elevator, the multitude of possibilities still swarming around in his head.

Above him, the Garden's giant awning continued to move, unhindered.


	2. Chapter 1: Shuffle or Boogie

**Find Your Way. Chapter 1: Shuffle or Boogie**

Adan had arrived about half an hour after curfew had ended. His shoes rattled the mesh iron walkway leading to the Secret Area. Since his classes earlier that day, he'd dressed down from his SeeD trainee uniform, opting for a simple white T-shirt and loose jeans; he wasn't dressing to impress.

He was mildly surprised that Zetal had gotten there before him, considering how soon after curfew it was, but remembering the urgency with which Zetal had appeared to want to see him, Adan supposed it wasn't all that shocking really.

Like Adan, Zetal had left behind his uniform and chosen to wear something more casual; loose combat trousers hung from his waist, held in place by a number of low hung, lopsided belts. In contrast, his blue shirt clung to his upper body and arms. Noticing that Adan was there, Zetal turned and offered a meek greeting, revealing that his hair-usually pulled back neatly for classes-had been let out of its captivity and allowed to flow. It wasn't overly-long; it dropped down to just below above his cheek, curling a little and framing his eyes. The occasional stray strand floated over his eyes and nose.

Adan couldn't help but notice as he approached that Zetal looked really ... good. He couldn't say he'd ever noticed it before but there he was. Without the shackles of his academic regiment, Zetal looked so much more comfortable in himself; how he dressed, how he stood. Adan found himself wondering how he'd never noticed before.

Zetal was one of Adan's friends, sure, but one of his friends from class. He was the kind of person you got to know really well because of the hours you accumulated sitting next to them in class and talking. He was the kind of person Adan looked forward to spending a class with but, oddly enough, he wasn't the kind of person he saw outside of the classroom or the cafeteria. He wasn't there whenever Adan and his friends went to Balamb, or if they decided to do some practice in the training area. He was a good friend, and a good classmate, but he'd never really been there outside of his academic life. Adan wondered if he had his own friends he did all the things he did with. Of course he did. He had to have.

"Hey" Adan threw out casually, as if there was nothing at all different about this meeting than any other. Zetal, who was leaning sideways against the balcony ledge, had a momentary relapse of interest in his footwear before raising his eyes to look at Adan. He didn't make eye contact, choosing instead to stare somewhere around his cheek . _Nervous_, Adan thought. His ego would like that.

"He-Hey" he managed, "How's it going?" Adan had to admit he was cute when he was shy, but he wasn't going to endure his sheepishness through the whole conversation. Not that he wanted to be cruel, of course not. He just didn't want this talk, whatever it was going to be about, to be mired in mumbles or misunderstood because of cryptic timidity.

"I'm not too bad" Adan replied with a smile, "curious as to why you asked me to come out here tonight. First time I've seen you outside of class or the cafeteria." He laughed a little; a friendly laugh. Zetal joined him, the tension surrounding their meeting beginning to ebb away.

"Yeah..." he furrowed his brow, shrugging slightly, "I guess I can be a little reclusive at times, huh?" Zetal was back, the overly shy man in his place having melted before Adan's disarming nonchalance, "I guess I've wanted to talk to you for a while now..."

With an eyebrow raised in interest, Adan moved closer and took a position next to Zetal, leaning fully on the balcony, staring out over the Garden. He heard a shifting of material next to him as Zetal turned to mimic his friend's posture, joining him in surveying the grounds.

"You can guess what this is about, huh?" Zetal spoke into the silence. Adan nodded, confident that his friend would catch the movement. He heard a sigh, "I won't waste any time then" he continued, his voice losing its confident momentum towards the end, cracking under his own nervousness. Regardless of his fear, he continued, "I like you, Adan. You're probably my closest friend." He gasped a laugh, "I mean, you make SoJ bearable; that's got to count for something!" Adan laughed, the smile remaining on his face after the laughter had dissipated.

"But I think, more than that..." Zetal went on, "I think I'm attracted to you", he breathed a laugh, barely noticeable, "I didn't think people actually said stuff like that..." He cleared his throat, indicating he was finished and reassuring himself somehow, as if the cough asserted his decision.

Adan exhaled slowly. So he'd been right. Although it cleared the fog of mystery surrounding the situation-the fog that had clouded Adam's thoughts-it raised a new dilemma. Namely; did Adan feel the same way? Did he reciprocate the feelings enough to think there was something there? Adan didn't have a fast answer to those questions.

He knew Zetal well, he'd already given that thought, and he'd already admitted he thought Zetal looked good, even _hot_ tonight. But whilst he knew how Zetal acted, how he would speak, what he would say or do, he didn't know the small things. The small things were important in relationships, weren't they? Favourite colours; types of chocolate; seasons; sports, smells...

But wasn't that the point: To get to know these things? If people already knew everything there was to know, how do you forge a relationship? It was part of the fun, wasn't it?

Adan sighed. Too many questions, not enough answers. He liked Zetal, he really did. He thought that maybe—possibly—there was something there that could work. But he didn't want maybes, or possibilities. He wanted to know something could work. Adan was well aware that relationships broke down, but he didn't want them to break down because he didn't care. If he broke up with someone, he wanted to know within himself that he tried his very hardest. He needed to think more, and he realised that all his contemplating had left Zetal waiting, having finished a sentence that had taken him years of stored courage to finally say.

"I have to admit, I'd sort of already figured that out". He was stalling for time, delaying the inevitable response he'd have to give. Zetal laughed, again barely a breath. "I don't know why, though, I'm nothing to brag about". Zetal looked ready to say something in defence, but Adan continued, cutting him off.

"To be honest, I don't really want an explanation right now" he smiled at his friend, "I'm not after an ego trip. I feel lucky enough you do". Adan gripped a little tighter on the balustrade; the point of no return was upon him. He couldn't spend his life waiting for perfection; there was no perfection. He had to enjoy what he had; maybe he'd have it forever. Adan turned from the view to face the other student. Zetal shied slightly under his gaze.

"You ... look good tonight". Adan spoke slowly, inching his hand along the railing. Zetal's breath hitched when he felt the other gently stroking the ends of his fingers. A slight breeze drifted across the open area. Adan moved closer. Stunned, but determined not to miss his opportunity, Zetal mirrored his movements.

"So do you. You always do". They were very close. Zetal swallowed thickly as the last few inches between them vanished. They met in a light, chaste kiss. Zetal sighed. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over. Zetal opened eyes he hadn't realised he had closed to see Adan smiling back at him.

"Let's go for it, huh?"

Zetal's stomach made a motion he was unused to, but not wholly against. He nodded and returned the smile. The breeze had fallen silent and, all around them, nightlife chirped and clicked away. The ambient cliché was apparent to both of them, so they laughed and eased back into a comfortable environment.

Not soon after, the two parted ways. Time dragged on and, before long, the Disciplinary Committee—the** real** Committee—would be along to disperse them and hand out punishments. Adan felt confident in his decision, realizing that wasting his time on constant consideration would leave him nowhere but alone. Conversely, Zetal just felt lucky that Adan had given him a chance, and was determined not to waste it.

The Secret Area, now empty, fell silent other than the babble of Crickets and the rustle of the breeze.

Some miles away, in Balamb, an explosion rocked the center of the small town. The fire erupted from the epicenter, red clouds blossoming further into the sky before dissolving into plumes of acrid, black smoke that was immediately lost to the darkness of the night. As the citizens of the sleepy, seaside town awoke and rushed to the source of distress, the rest of the world continued to sleep.

The sea lapped against the shore, whispering for silence.

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Well this took me what, YEARS, to upload. I know I must seem like a very bad writer at this stage but I've honestly been working on it, in bits and pieces, for that amount of time. However, I have got a better grip on myself and my writing schedule since I first started this, so I hope to have the next part done by the end of April. Shall we say the 29th? Yeah, why not.


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